Among the strangers, there was a woman with them whose scent was similar to that of the younger man. She alone seemed completely disinterested in fighting, staring past me at Dakota with an expression that—well, that didn’t strike me as predatory, despite the fact that each and every one of us was a predator.
“So I’m going to give you one shot at this,” I said to Grant. “You can scurry home on all fours with your tail between your legs like the dog you are, forfeiting any and all claim youthinkyou have to my pack and people, or, I’m going to put you down and take everything you have. One chance.”
Grant snarled, exposing long white fangs. His claws grew. And while he was too much of a coward to answer me directly, by pack law that was enough. We had space in our laws for non-verbal communications, and a threat like this constituted proof of his indication to fight me.
Good.
I tore my T-shirt with a claw and burst out of my clothes. We could fight as men, but why, when we were wolves? Taking him down would be faster with fang and claw than with fists.
As I sprang off my hind legs and sailed through the air, Grant’s eyes widened. Before I hit him, he’d transformed, and we rolled across the dirt.
This was my fight and his—no one else shifted. They weren’t meant to, but it was a relief. I’d settle this fast and?—
Grant snapped his jaws at me, bringing me back to the moment. I didn’t have time to think about what came next, if I was dead.
First, I needed to put him down.
I reared back, and he kicked out, leaving me no choice but to move aside. He got back on all fours, crouching with a vicious snarl.
I didn’t bend down to meet him where he was. Now that we were wolves, it was even more apparent how small he really was. He was a sparse, wicked little wolf, and he didn’t frighten me.
He seemed to realize it at once. When he flinched back, I expected him to spring at me.
Instead, he twisted around and darted off into the trees.
I let him run, throwing my head back and howling to the moon. He couldn’t hide his scent from me. I’d track his every step.
Letting him get ahead of me caused a sparking pleasure to rush up the back of my neck. My wolf longed for the hunt.
After a few seconds’ head start, I bounded after him. My gait was longer, and his sweat stank with fear.
It might’ve been a trap, but I didn’t smell anything off. I didn’t care if it was. I felt the ripple of wolves behind us—not getting close, but coming to watch how this played out, witness as we decided the fate of their pack and ours.
Seth wouldn’t let Grant pull anything.
I rushed through the trees, and by pushing my thighs to the limit, I caught him. Leaping, I knocked him out of the air. He yelped as I snapped at his throat, but I couldn’t get a good grip. We clawed at each other, but we were both alphas with packs behind us. Our skin stitched together almost faster than we could wound each other.
And then I smelled it—smoke. Sharp and acrid down my throat. Burning.
I turned from Grant and the moment I was distracted, he scrambled away. His blood was on my tongue, but all bloodlust died at the orange glow beyond the enormous windows of our home, overlooking the lake we’d run parallel to.
“Fire,” Dakota shouted. “There’s a fire.”
I took off as fast as I could, leaving Grant to his own pack or to—whatever. I didn’t fucking care. Maia was in there. Kent and Lydia and Flynn.Fuck.
Grant hadn’t beaten me, but I hadn’t beaten him either. Not yet.
The challenge stood, but from the lake house, I heard a scream. Closer, and I heard coughing in the red glow of the cloudy smoke. That was Kent.
He was outside the house. Others too, crouching to catch their breaths beneath the haze. There was Lydia and Flynn and Briton and?—
Oh shit, Maia.
I’d barely had time to process the spike of panic before the house groaned. Sparks flew at shifting wood above the doorframe, but a second later, the door itself crashed outward.
The blond man—the one who’d cornered Dakota in the bathroom—came out, Maia unconscious in his arms.
I was on two feet in a second, naked and rushing toward them.
